Army Testing Energy Efficient Tents

The US Army is currently testing a new design of energy saving camps that save money, fuel and water and feature solar power, the Army has announced.

The camps, which offer energy and resource reductions of 35 to 75 percent over traditional canvas set-ups, don’t feature tents in their traditional sense at all. Instead, soldiers’ shelters are ridged-sided boxes that resemble shipping containers. The containers are made material lightweight enough that one soldier can lift a 20-foot wall section.

Shelters have an insulation R-Value of approximately 12, compared to four for tents. They feature LED lighting, motion-detecting switches, low-water efficient laundry systems, low-water latrines and shower heads, waterless urinals, rain water collection systems, shower water reuse systems and highly-efficient generator micro grids, the Army says.

One nod to the shelter’s canvas predecessors is a solar shading canopy – that looks very much like a canvas roof – suspended above the container. As well as cutting down the amount of the sun’s heat energy that reaches the shelter, the shading features photovoltaics and battery power storage.

As a result of the resource efficiency, convoys needed to deliver fuel and water to base camps in war zones would be reduced, putting fewer soldiers at risk.

Each rigid-wall shelter can house 10 soldiers and be set up in less than 15 minutes by four people. Current test sites include Fort Benning, Ga., and Fort Bliss, Texas. Two more test camps are to be set up at Fort Devens, Mass., and one in Australia. Small camps could be deployed in Afghanistan by this summer, the Army says.

One comment on “Army Testing Energy Efficient Tents”

This is great. Glad the Warfighter has nicer, more rigid accommodations that conserve energy. Many people don’t know, but the cost of one gallon of fuel on the battlefield can cost anywhere between $1 – $400, as per Gen. Paul Kern! Any energy savings with costs like that are truly fantastic.